


Glass Houses

by Rotpeach



Series: Every Nuance of Misfortune [1]
Category: Boyfriend to Death (Visual Novel)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Implied necrophilia, POV First Person, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 11:28:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7975210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rotpeach/pseuds/Rotpeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know a dark secret about your most frequent customer, and he knows one of yours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glass Houses

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be a wacky short about a clueless home and garden store employee asking Strade about that fence he's building but  
> you know  
> best laid plans etc etc  
> also this is 1st person cuz i really wanted to try imitating the narrative style in the game but present tense is my jam so its still not quite right lol

I find myself awaiting Strade’s next visit anxiously.

Whenever he comes in, he smiles at me.  He always looks across a sea of people—overconfident and temperamental artists who “don’t need help, thank you, I know what I’m doing,” skittish newlyweds trying not to argue over what kind of tile to put in the kitchen, children running around unaccompanied and knocking over store displays—as if they aren’t even there, always catches my eye and grins like the whole world is brighter somehow, and it makes my stomach twist anxiously.

My coworkers all find him endearing, and so did I at one point; his talkativeness, his unkempt appearance yet friendly demeanor, sweat soaking the pits of his shirt and sleeves rolled up to his elbows like a wholesome handyman who instinctively gravitates towards people in need, the hint of a German accent coloring his words.

“That’s a man who doesn’t feel the need to put on airs,” my boss says with reverence whenever Strade leaves the store with a cart filled to the brim with chicken wire, pliers, a nail gun, a new hammer or hand saw, and half of the rope in the store.

( _Really?_  That much rope?  One person needs that much fucking rope, the heavy duty kind that doesn’t fray even when you pull on it, desperately, frantically?  The kind that’d be perfect for tying someone up in the basement and digging angry red circles around their wrists?)

He’s cordial with everybody, pleasant and warm when he addresses them as “buddy,” but the only person he really makes an effort to talk to, the only person he zeroes in on the moment he comes into the store, the only person he asks to help him take his stuff out to his car is me.

(And it’s on purpose, I know it is, because one time Jane had a woman and her I-don’t-even-want-to-be-here tantrum-throwing son in her lane debating over what in their cart was actually necessary to build a birdhouse while I had about forty people in mine, and Strade went over there and talked to them about their fucking birdhouse for more than ten minutes just to kill time until my line was nearly gone, ensuring it was me who rang up his purchases.

Jane noticed, too; said I was lucky, she wished someone would kill time just to talk to her.  And that was more than a week ago, so at the time I was flattered rather than staring across the store at her, watching her watch him with a smile, and thinking about how ignorance really is the best shit in the world.)

“Hey, buddy, how’s it going?” he asks conversationally, as he always does.  He walks an empty cart past my lane, though he slows down as he waits for a response.  I do my best to smile back in a way that suggests I was looking forward to seeing him.

(And not like he’s a complete and total Silence of the Lambs poison in the tea chloroform washrags “don’t go in the basement, I mean it,” psychopath.)

“It’s going,” I say neutrally and watch him go.

But he’s slowing down even further

(Why.  Why in the fuck is he slowing down.  Is he stopping?  Why is he stopping get out of my lane please get the fuck away from me _please for the love of god_ )

and now he’s just standing around

(Please go just leave me alone I’m just trying to live my life why are you doing this)

looking at me with a smile that makes me deeply uncomfortable.

“Yeah?” he says, “You look a little tired, got some dark circles under your eyes.  You sleeping okay?”

(No not for the last fucking week I have not slept okay would you stop pretending like this is anything other than a game to you)

“Eh.”  I shrug.  “I’ve had a few late nights this week.”

“Ah, that’s no good.  You gotta take better care of yourself.  I’m really worried about you.”

I force a smile.  “Well, thanks, I appreciate the concern.”

“No problem, buddy, just looking out for you.”

Strade finally _finally_ leaves and I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding, feeling sweat sliding down between my shoulder blades.  He disappears into the lumber aisle and I try to distract myself by calling out to Jane a few lanes over, asking what she’s doing this weekend.

(I try not to think about Strade, I really, really, try not to, but he comes out of the lumber aisle and flashes another big, toothy grin as he walks by, like he fucking knows, as though saying without any words, “Remember last week when you helped me carry a pre-assembled table into my car and saw some dead girl in my trunk?”

Of course I fucking remember, I’ve tried everything to forget, but her face, her fucking _face_ —could I even call it a face?  It was just a bunch of shredded flesh hanging off of a skull, just some raw-edged unraveling meat in the vague shape of a human mask, half of a Glasglow smile carved into the sagging, pale lips, eyes glassy, gray and pulsing with maggots, one of them eating right through the thin membrane and wiggling at me out of her dead pupil just as Strade slammed the trunk door shut.

“Whoops,” he’d said with a laugh, sounding vaguely embarrassed but not really troubled, “Just put it in the backseat, I guess.”)

“You think he’s lonely?” Jane asks suddenly.

I blink.  “What?”

“Strade,” she clarifies, and I glance up to find the man we’re talking about staring at the assorted hammers in the clearance bin with a frightening intensity in his eyes.

“Lonely,” I repeat flatly.  It’s not a question, but Jane still takes it as one.

“Yeah.  You know, I asked if he has any family over here, and he said no.  He lives out in that new housing development by the lake in a two-story all by himself.”

(How would she know?  Who’s to say he doesn’t keep company?  Keep them for a long, long time, longer than they want to stay?)

“I’m sure he’s fine,” I say stiffly.

(Honestly, I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Why did he let me go?  Why didn’t he pull me into his car, tie me up with some of his brand new rope, stick a knife in my face and dump me in a ravine somewhere?  Speaking of, did anyone even look for that girl?  Do her parents know?  Do they have any idea that she has a face like ground beef now?)

It’s then that Strade comes around the corner with a broad smile, making a beeline for my empty lane.

(Right past Jane’s much closer and equally empty one.  She just leers and give me a thumbs up, and I can’t even look at her.)

“Did you find everything alright?” I ask automatically, like he’s any other customer.  Like he’s totally normal, like he’s a swell guy who enjoys the simple things in life like fishing on the weekends and building things in his garden and not stashing fucking corpses in the back of his car.

(Oh god he’s buying a soldering gun why does he need a soldering gun WHY DOES HE NEED THAT)

“Sure did,” he says cheerfully.

I try to work quickly, try to scan his items as fast as I can so he’ll just leave, but my hands are shaking and I keep dropping shit everywhere and oh god he noticed of course he noticed he’s going to fucking kill me—

“You alright there, buddy?” he asks, having the gall to sound like he’s really torn up about my wellbeing, and he reaches across the counter

(Oh shit what do I do what do I fucking do)

holding my gaze the entire time

(Do I pull away is it worse if I pull away oh god he’s going to touch me those are the same hands that carved up that girl’s fucking face and tied her up and probably buried her somewhere in the woods oh god I’m so dead _oh shit_ )

and presses his fingertips to the back of my hand, gently.

I flinch.

Strade stares at me, patiently, and I stare right back.

Nothing seems to be happening.

“You’re really pale,” he says, “Clammy hands, too.  I think you’re coming down with something.”

“Oh,” I say weakly.  Oh, like this is a surprise.

“You know what?  You take it easy today.  I’ll get everything in the car myself, don’t even worry about it.”

I’m supposed to ask if he’s sure and insist on helping, but I keep my goddamned mouth shut and nod.

“You make sure you get some sleep tonight, alright?  No going out and doing anything crazy, not when you’re already feeling under the weather.”

I just keep nodding, yes, yes, sure, oh really, that’s interesting, as another length of rope disappears into a plastic bag.

“If you have a sore throat—and this sounds weird, I know, but just trust me—heat some orange juice for a minute or two in the microwave, it’ll help.”

(Somewhere out there, raw chicken ground beef jerky face girl is buried in a shallow grave, fly eggs hatching in her wounds, maggots oozing out of her pores, beetles eating her coiled intestines, centipedes fornicating in her skull.  A fox carries away her femur and a pack of wolves squabble over a scapula with a few red sinewy strands still attached.

And I keep fucking thinking about it, over and over, every night I have dreams of her curled up in Strade’s trunk with nearly-translucent skin, bone white everywhere but the places he cut her open, hands grasping, slack-jawed in a silent scream, and thinking about it should make me sick, but)

“Did you call the police?”

I drop something again—a pair of garden shears that are surely going to be used for something other than their intended purpose—but Strade catches it before it hits the floor.  He’s looking at me with narrowed eyes, voice low, the hint of a threat in his words.

“Wh...what—?”

He holds out the shears, the pointed tip facing me.  I glance over at Jane but she happens to have customers right now.

( _Happens to_ , of course, just like when Strade _happens to_ have an encyclopedic knowledge of birdhouses until I’m free to have my time monopolized)

I jump when he flips the shears around in his hand, now holding out the handle instead.  I take it from him, and he makes sure our fingertips brush before letting go.

(Oh _god_ )

He’s still smiling.  He’s still smiling and it’s the scariest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.

“Did you.  Call.  The police,” he says slowly, almost kindly, like he doesn’t want me to misunderstand him.

“I.  No.  I.  No, I, I didn’t,” I stammer.

(Oh god I didn’t I was too fucking scared.  I thought, somehow, he’s going to know, somehow he’s going to find out he’s probably waiting for me to do it and when I do that’ll be it that’ll be the end but that poor girl is decomposing somewhere and nobody knows nobody but me nobody knows how pretty she looked with her paper-thin skin and a million little living things wriggling around in her head, feasting on what was left of her soft tender cute face)

“Good.”  And then he starts calmly sticking the scanned items into plastic bags, humming to himself.  I’m still frozen, clutching the garden shears as if they can save me.

(They can’t.  They fucking can’t and I know it.)

“You know, this is my favorite store in town,” he says,

(He’s still talking he’s still trying to make conversation I can’t believe this shit)

“I really like it here.  Everyone’s so friendly and helpful.  Especially you.”  He makes a point to stop talking until I hesitantly look at him and meet his eyes, a sharp pang of regret like ice down my back hitting me when I see just how relaxed he is, how in control he is.  “You don’t smile at me like you used to, though,” he says, “Not since last week.”

Here it comes.  After seven days of waiting with baited breath, the elephant in the room is finally getting addressed, dragged behind a shed and probably stabbed in the face a few times, flayed alive, tossed in the woods somewhere and forgotten forever.  

He stops fussing with the plastic bags to lean over the counter, and I resist the urge to bolt out of the fucking store, determined to remain where someone else might at least see.  “What we shared then,” he says quietly, “That moment we had in the parking lot.  I haven’t forgotten about it.”

Full stop, hand with the price scanner frozen mid-air, deer-in-headlights wide-eyed.  Strade looks no different—no less innocent, no less pleasant, still smiling his goofy fucking “hey buddy” smile—but I feel like something’s changed, something’s shifted or maybe even flipped completely.  He glances back over his shoulder at Jane, who’s doing a manual price check on some garbage piece of wood that the old man in front of her insists is at least 50% off, distracted.

“You didn’t get a very good look,” he says, “I’ll be honest, it wasn’t an accident that I forgot to clean out the trunk before I came here.  I always kind of hoped you’d stumble onto something.”

(What the fuck is he talking abo)

“You liked it, right?” he asks, “It got you all excited.”

(I

  
  


what)

“It _did_ ,” he insists, voice dropping an octave as his smile becomes a vicious grin, “I knew it did.  I knew you’d get it.”

“Get…what...”  I choke on my own words

(because I can’t I can’t even what is he)

Strade gently presses the last item in his cart—a screwdriver with a black and yellow plastic handle, heated from his grip and covered in his sweat—into my hand, closing my fingers around it.  “You know, I,” he chuckles, “I make movies for a living.  Amateur film, I guess you could say, low-budget for a niche market.  I bet you’d like them.”

Automatically, desperately searching for some semblance of normalcy, I scan the last item and put it in his waiting, open hand.  I feel sweat gathering at my brow, legs locking up, heat rushing to my face in fear and embarrassment and _shame_ because

(how

 

how did he know)

“How did you….”

But I never get the chance to ask because he starts loading up his cart with his purchases and I notice a few people heading for my checkout lane.  “I’ll probably drop by again tomorrow,” he says happily, back to normal like nothing happened.

I nod dumbly, my heart beating so loudly I’m sure he must be able to hear it.

“And I’ll probably need some help taking stuff out to the car.”

I try not to hyperventilate.

“Maybe we’ll have a minute to talk while we’re out there?”

When I finally feel able to look at him, I find something hungry in his eyes that was surely there before but I hadn’t ever noticed.

“So see you then,” he says, and then he’s gone, disappearing out of the automatic doors with one last smile over his shoulder.  The next customer has to wave a hand in front of my face to get my attention, and I’m still frazzled for hours turning Strade’s words over in my mind.

_“You liked it, right?”_

_“It got you all excited.”_

_“I make movies for a living.  Amateur film, I guess you could say….”_

_“I bet you’d like them.”_

The sun is setting by the end of my shift, yolk-yellow and melting into the dark horizon.  Jane comes over with a concerned look on her face, putting a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asks, “You’ve been acting weird whenever Strade comes in lately, and he was a little close to you earlier.  Did he do something to you?”

“No,” I say quickly, “I’ve just been a little out of it, and he noticed.”  I give her a reassuring smile—it’s a little shaky and a little nervous, but it doesn't feel too forced.  “We just learned a little bit more about each other today.”

I am, of course, painfully aware of what they say about cats and what curiosity does to them.

Despite this, I have a dream that night about digging a girl out of the ground just to see that face once again, and I find myself awaiting Strade’s next visit anxiously.

**Author's Note:**

> ive actually been sitting on this for a couple weeks  
> i was gonna post it a while back but i got super self-conscious after my first post lol  
> but im mostly over it now


End file.
